Suggested Changes in U.S.Policy re: Palestine/Israel

Date: Sat, 30 May 2009

To: Quakerpi . May 30, 2009

From: Brad Angell, Peace and Social Concerns Committee, Kendal (PA) Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends

Kendal Monthly Meeting has approved the following statements (italicized) regarding changes in the Policy of the United States with respect to Peace in Israel and Palestine. It has been presented to the Western Quarterly Meeting and a movement is under way to seek its possible adoption by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. I am wondering whether your group, might like to consider these suggestions. .

Kendal Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends would like to recommend the three following changes in United States’ policies towards Israel and Palestine:

A. The United States should stop all funding of military weapons for Israel and it Arab neighbors.

B. The United States should offer $3B in financial aid to Israel to finance withdrawal of settlers from settlements in the West Bank, to re-establish them in the State of Israel, and to ease the turnover of vacated properties to the State of Palestine.

C. Continued U.S. aid to Israel should be conditioned on Israel’s stopping the expansion of settlements in the occupied (“disputed”) territories and its abolition of all outposts in those areas.

Some reasons for Quakers to support of these statements: These three changes are in accord with Friends values; and they are based on major precedents and policy positions the United States has taken in the past with respect to Israel and Palestine.

A. In the first years of Israel’s existence .Presidents Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy placed an arms embargo on both Israel and its Arab neighbors to avoid war. President Johnson changed this policy in 1967 giving Israel $90M in military aid when the Egypt, armed by Russia, mobilized Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia to attack Israel. U.S. Military aid to Israel has since increased to $3B a year. Israel is now the most powerful military nation in the Middle East with a $3.5B military industry. Meanwhile Egypt and Jordan have peace treaties with Israel and the Arab League members have offered peace and recognition to Israel if it withdraws to its 1967 borders. For these reasons, The United States should stop all funding of military weapons for Israel and it Arab neighbors.

B. Through twelve Presidents’ administrations, the United States has supported the existence of Israel unequivocally — politically, financially and internationally. We should continue to insist on The State of Israel’s legal right to exist - and support it, although in different ways.

Legitimate questions can be raised about the right of colonial nations to establish a new nation against the wishes of most the area’s inhabitants. But the UN Security Council established Israel in 1947, as a homeland for Jews who had suffered in the Holocaust and many ghettos around the world. Israel has since developed into a thriving, democratic country, with membership in the United Nations and diplomatic relationships with 162 countries (though none with 36 others, including 20 of the 22 members of the Arab league). It would be unconscionable - as well as politically questionable - for the U.S. to slacken its support of Israel at this time.

This does not mean U.S. must do everything a current ruling party in Israel wishes. United States has opposed Israel’s policies of land acquisition and settlements in the West Bank since their inception in 1967. The vast majority of members of the UN, the World Court and many others consider the Israeli settlements in the west bank illegal, resulting in severe violation of the human rights of Palestinians. This has led not only to wide hostility to Israel but also has damaged United States’ reputation as an honest mediator. The withdrawal of settlements will be difficult and expensive. The second recommendation is offered both in the interest of Israel, and of United States “ The United States should offer $3B in financial aid to Israel to finance withdrawal of settlers from settlements in the West Bank, to re-establish them in the State of Israel, and to ease the turnover of vacated properties to the State of Palestine.”

C. Almost every President since Truman has tried to bring Peace to the Israeli Arab situation. The settlements with their “access roads”, etc., are major obstacles to the “Two State solution” that is now endorsed by the U.S., Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, as well as major parties in Israel. Palestine can not become a viable independent state if large areas inside it remain under Israeli control. A central step in the “Road Map” towards this solution is to stop the continual expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Since 1957, when Israel began to increase settlements in the West Bank, all nine U.S. Presidents have opposed it. The U.N., World Court, and, (until Reagan) all U.S. administrations, held these settlements were illegal. Yet the expansion of settlements has continued steadily up to the present day. In January 1992 Secretary of State Baker (in G.W.H.Bush’s Administration) said it was a major obstacle to peace process and that the U.S. would support the Israeli request for loan guarantees only if Israel agreed to freeze all settlements activity in the Territories. On September 30,1993 President Clinton notified Congress that according to Section 226(d) of the Foreign Assistance Act, the $2 billion loan guarantee for 1994 would be reduced by $437 million, the amount spent on Jewish settlements in the occupied territories in 1993. Similar reductions of $300 million were made for the same reasons each year until 1997 (though their impact was diminished by “offsets” added “for security interests”.) So the proposal that “Continued U.S. aid to Israel should be conditioned on Israel’s stopping the expansion of settlements in the occupied (“disputed”) territories and its abolition of all outposts in those areas” has its precedents in past U.S. policy as well as being an important factor in achieving the two-state solution.

P.S. On request, your will be sent an hour long Power Point on U.S. Policy re: Palestine/Israel through eleven PresidentialAdministrations, and/or four pages of more extensive arguments supporting the three Statements in the Kendal Minute.